growing up in a good ol' Kiwi Campground

The Final Countdown

My last day at work is Friday. Yes this Friday. As in 4 days away. I’m gonna need a minute for that to sink in before moving on…

Okay, I’m ready.

Anyway, I’ve been working away, trying to get through everything, but last week I hit a wall and reached countdown mode. It suddenly struck me how little time I had left. How little I could realistically do before leaving. How much I had to leave with others. And I started to check out.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m still doing the work. I’m still there. I’m still starting what needs to be started, following through, and doing what I need to. But at the same time, I’m challenging less, and acting less independently. When I am asked to do work that I don’t agree with the approach on, I am more likely to do it without raising the issues I have. The challenges feel pointless when I am pretty sure no one will carry them on after I go… And so I’m basically just doing what’s asked of me – no more, no less. It’s a bad attitude, and at any other time, I would definitely act differently. But at the moment, I’m just doing what I need to do to make it through to the end, without leaving a mess behind me.

Two weeks of this is far from ideal, but at the same time, I’m actually impressed that I lasted so long before getting to this point, given that it’s been nearly two whole months since I quit my job. (Two busy months, hence the lack of blogging: I’ve set up 4 new projects, created 3 complex spreadsheets to manage data, run 5 workshops, trained 3 people to take over different parts of my work, recruited 3 new people for my team. And that’s just at work!)

As a comparison, another manager at work announced his resignation at about the same time as me, and is finishing on the same day. In the last two months, I’ve barely seen him around the office. I’ve had multiple people comment to me that he’s not around. And even his boss has mentioned that he’s completely checked out. I know that comparing is a dangerous game, and not useful to anyone, but I also know that I’m glad I haven’t been as bad as him!

So now I’ve reached the final countdown, and I don’t quite know what to do with myself. My week is busy with two full day meetings (including one on my final day), my work is mostly handed over but not truly, my new boss is flighty and difficult to pin down, and all of this is just too much for me at the moment. My brain is in overdrive and I’m exhausted.

I think the main thing is to realise that at this point, I can do what I can do. But I can’t actually do more than that. And the world will continue to turn without me…